Perdido 03

Monday, November 3, 2014

Cuomo Deliberately Widens Rift With Liberal Base In Waning Days Of The Campaign

Since your reading this blog, I know you already know how Andrew Cuomo took deliberate and conscious aim at teachers and public schools in the last week and let us all know he's coming for us in the next term.

— Created a furor among educators by referring to the education system as “one of the last remaining public monopolies.”

— Pressed New Yorkers to vote for him on
the Women’s Equality Party ballot line he created — leading many
progressives to believe it’s an attempt to kill or weaken the Working
Families Party, which party publicly embarrassed him in May before he
ended up getting the party’s endorsement after Mayor de Blasio helped
broker a deal.

— Did virtually no campaigning for state
Senate Democrats who are trying to take control of the chamber. Cuomo
had promised to make it a priority.

Working Families Party co-Chairwoman Karen Scharff called the governor's actions “kind of puzzling.”

“Who does that before Election Day?” she asked. “I don’t quite get the
goal. The public overwhelmingly supports our public schools, so it’s
hard to understand why the governor would attack public education right
before the election.”

What's Cuomo's goal?

Perhaps this:

"You would think that this is the time (Cuomo) should be bringing
everybody back home," said one Democratic operative. "But this is the
reason there is no enthusiasm at the top of the ticket and that can
impact the down-ballot races."

Cuomo definitely wants a State Senate run the same way as it currently is - by an amalgam of Republicans and Independent Democrats who govern rightward - so that could be one of the reasons he's taking on the base here.